A Tight Race in Sri Lanka Two Years After Its President Fled

The central issue in the election is how to correct the economy’s deep imbalances.

Sri Lanka is holding a presidential election on Saturday for the first time since its strongman president fled the country two years ago in the face of protests over an economic collapse.

During the 2022 crisis, Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debt and suffered shortages of imported fuel and food as its foreign exchange reserves ran dry. The interim government has introduced austerity measures to stabilize the economy, a condition for receiving a $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

The central issue in the election is how Sri Lanka should correct the imbalances in an economy long warped by too little taxation, too many subsidies and excessive borrowing. Opponents are trying to paint the incumbent, Ranil Wickremesinghe, as placing an unfair burden on the poor through increased taxation. They also say he is letting off the hook the elites whose corruption and mismanagement wrecked the economy.

The race is seen as tight. Here are the main contenders.

The Incumbent

Mr. Wickremesinghe, 75, a six-time former prime minister, is a political survivor. His elevation to the presidency in 2022, after the overthrow of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, plucked him out of irrelevance and demonstrated his formidable bargaining powers.

He became interim president with the help of the powerful Rajapaksa clan, in what many saw as a deal in which he would not take action against the Rajapaksas for running the economy into the ground.

Over the past two years, Mr. Wickremesinghe has pitched himself as a senior statesman who has helped stabilize the country. He has argued that the economy is on the road to recovery, pointing to declining inflation and the country’s current account surplus, a broad measure of the trade balance. He has also promised to reduce taxes on essential goods, a nod to how his measures have pinched the poor.

The Marxist

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, 55, is the most closely watched candidate in the election. He has tapped into popular disenchantment with the political parties that have led the country in recent decades.

The party that Mr. Dissanayake leads was once behind deadly Marxist insurrections against the Sri Lankan state. But over the past 10 years, he has tried to move the party more to the center, distancing it from the staunch Communism and revolutionary principles of its past.

Mr. Dissanayake positioned his party, which is part of a much larger leftist coalition, as a supporter of the 2022 protest movement and presented himself as someone who would carry out its demands for a less centralized state. He has said he would renegotiate the deal with the I.M.F. and end corruption in higher offices.

The Opposition Leader

Sajith Premadasa, 57, the son of a former president, has promised a “social market economy” with a mix of market-led and social justice policies. Mr. Premadasa’s platform promises to strengthen fiscal discipline under the I.M.F. agreement while making changes to give relief to the poor.

He has the backing of the main political party of the country’s minority Tamils. Mr. Premadasa has vowed to fully implement a constitutional amendment intended to devolve powers to the country’s provinces to better accommodate Sri Lanka’s diversity.

The Heir

Namal Rajapaksa is the 38-year-old scion of a family that dominated the country’s politics for two decades but has struggled to bounce back after the upheaval of 2022.

His father, Mahinda, was one of Sri Lanka’s most popular leaders after he ended the country’s long civil war in 2009 with a brutal crackdown on the Tamil insurgency. But as the family’s star has fallen, Namal Rajapaksa has campaigned as the candidate of youth and change. He has also drawn on the postwar development projects that his father oversaw to say he will expand the economy.

Mujib Mashal contributed reporting.